Juno spacecraft reveals spectacular cyclones at Jupiter's poles

Wed, 05/24/2017

NASA's Juno spacecraft has spotted giant cyclones swirling at Jupiter's north and south poles and Cornell astronomer Jonathan Lunine is part of the mission team working to explore what that might mean, according to this story on NPR.

The cyclones are one of the unexpected and puzzling findings being reported by the Juno science team, the NPR story says.

"You point a camera at terra incognita on Jupiter, and 'surprise!' you get a surprise," says Lunine, the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and director of the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, in the story.

Ultimately, scientists will want to understand how these cyclones change over time and whether they form differently in the north and south poles. "But for now, just to sit back and stare at these images is just a delight to the eye," Lunine says in the story.